The Monkeys Paw
by Dragon Masquerade
Summary: night at the museum jed/octie Dexter abducts 2 minitures from the diorama room, and through an act of destructiveness. sparks something no exibit before him has ever acheived. rated M for blood and gore, slash scenes, and future lemon. taken off hiatus
1. The story unfolds

3rd person POV

It started as a normal night in the museum, well as normal as you can get when there's stuffed animals, stone statues, iron figures and wax manikins running about every night, Larry, having checked on all the exhibits and released Ahkmunra from his sarcophagus, was entertaining himself by playing a game of fetch with Rexxie. But all wasn't well in the museum, the exhibits had prospered under Larry's guidance but some things cannot be completely forgotten, like decades worth of miniature rivalry. Things had started completely innocently with Jedediah setting of on a little expedition to find more building material. He had set up a timber mill of sorts, were he and his men removed long slivers of wood from a splintering part of the central benches. It had been very successful until Octavius realised the potential in this little industry, and decided he simply must copy Jedediah streak of genius but there was only one splintering plant and instead of talking it over, or sharing the resource there rivalry hit up, and the two of them were having a good old fashion yell out.

"You keep your cotton piken fingers off this here establishment, this is my land we found it first end of story!" Jed yelled intent on keeping any gloating right he had over the general.

"No! The Roman empire could do so much more with this establishment, you have all but tinkered, with our resources we could have had all the goods we needed by now, but here I am negotiating with a mere barbarian, in old times I would have unleased my armies long before now!" he was write of course The 12th and 14th centuries of roman soldiers were awaiting command below the bench should it come to a forceful overthrow, but not the entire army as had once been so. While still rival leaders and hostile neighbours they were against all odds, friends but there were not over using arrows and guns to get what they wanted.

Little to the feuding miniatures knowledge their problems were only just beginning. Dexter the monkey was up to his old tricks and out for blood, the bag of bones had stopped his key snatching fun and when Dexter didn't get what he wanted he took it out on his second favourite pass time, miniature collecting. He took a subtle approach, slinking silently in the shadows as he had learnt from the lion neighbours, his glass eyes picking out the perfect targets, two miniatures, stranded on heir own on the bench, and they were very preoccupied.

"Now you listen up toga boy cause Im not gonna say this twice get. You're. Own. Timber mill!" Jedediah was starting to fume, he was not interested in all the outrageous, and frankly unfair, deals being put forward by the general but he was unrelenting. Things were going to get ugly one way or another that much was certain.

And things did get ugly, in the worst possible way. The capuchin striked springing upon the miniatures like a cobra at a rat, grasping the little figurines in a single paw he took of like a rocket poor Octavius didn't even have the chance to yell "open fire" to his prime archers he had brought in case of a similar situation.

"Hey! Put me down I don't like being manhandled! Or monkey handled, or ah whatever JUST PUT ME DOWN!" Jedediah was, understandably, NOT HAPPY with the current predicament he was writhing and squirming much to the generals discomfort, but as always he was completely oblivious everything but the matter at hand, which was GET THE HECK OUTA HERE.

"By Venus will you stop moving, this is a highly embarrassing position as it is, I don't need you moving about and making this worse!" Octavius, always the observant one, did see past the matter at hand and it was making thinking about the matter at hand pretty difficult.

The position of the both of them was truthfully, beyond embarrassing. Jedediah was rammed into Octavius from behind, quite forcefully mind you, his waist pressed into Octavius lower back just under the armour plate. His legs had ended up curled around the generals belly, he could feel Octivius's bronze breast plate digging into his thighs quite painfully and Octavius had one of his arms jarred between his waist and the cowboys left thigh, his hand caught dangerously close to Jedediah's package. Octavius' tunic had nearly completely ridden up showing plenty of pale musculare thigh, if not for the smelly monkey paw holding them both this position would have been very suggestive, and the crimson red blush adorning Octavius cheeks attested to that.

Dexter screeched to an abrupt halt inside an empty hall, perching on an empty display and he started checking out his catch for the day. He started poking, pinching, tugging and vigorously shaking the two, very amused by their screams and protests. Just as he was about do something a little more drastic the miniatures heard a very welcome foreign language drift through the door

"Its Artilla the Hun!" Octavius yelled, and the two started screaming for help. Artilla and his men gave chase, and attempted to dog pile the errant prime ape, but Dexter dodged, ducked and bounced everything put at him catapulting off down the hall with the speed and agility that only a feisty monkey could ever achieve.

"Get Ahkmunra and Larry, they can help us!" Octavius shouted after the gang of Huns, hoping to Jupiter that they could understand him.

The Hun gang charged down the hall to the foyer in which by some stroke of luck, Larry was having a conversation with Ahkmunrah about Cambridge University, they immediately broke the conversation and started talking in a feverish pace to Ahkmunrah, speaking so fast that the good pharaoh had to command them to calm down so he could understand them. When they did repeat their story at an understandable speed, Ahkmunrah went paler than death, if that's possible for a dead person.

"Well, do they just want to dismember someone or something" Larry was clearly unimpressed by the intrusion on his private conversation.

"If only, it appears a monkey had stolen two miniatures from the diorama room, they were in great distress and the monkey seemed to be torturing them. They attempted to catch the creature but it was too quick for them" Ahkmunrah was mortified.

"Dexter! Oh that monkey is going to pay this time! Huns go to the diorama room to make sure another miniature war doesn't break out and try to calm them down, remember no violence! Ahk come with me, we have a monkey to catch!" Ahkmunrah translated the plan to the Huns and took of to where Dexter had been last sighted, and followed his trail of destruction, which ended in a disused storage room it was in the middle of a revamp, half of the floor boards were ripped up and the wallpaper was being stripped, the Forman had been mentioning turning these store rooms into further exhibits, thus the revamp. Dexter was perched on an upturned board he had started shaking the miniatures again, they were going rather green.

"I. Think. I'm. Gonna. Be. Sick." Jedediah managed to spit out, each word accompanied by a vicious shake of their fragile body's.

" I. Know. The. Feeling." Octavius managed to agree, his voice accompanied by his stomach's violent upheavals, which were getting harder to force back down.

Larry and Ahkmunrah saw the gravity of the situation immediately, the miniatures were delicate creatures, if this treatment would continue they wouldn't last the night. Remembering Theodore's methods he slowly approached the errand monkey.

"Dexter those are not toys, they are not to be played with, this is very serious, please slowly and gently put them in my hand, I am asking you calmly and kindly here" He was and under any other circumstance the monkey might have actually done as he was told, but he did not like Larry, not in the slightest.

Dexter reached out his monkey paw, Jedediah and Octavius dangling from it mutely, He slowly walked towards Larry in a skip hopping fashion. Just as the two figurines were about to be safely placed in Larry's palm, that mischievous grin appeared on the monkeys face, he threw the miniatures over his shoulder with all his monkey strength cackling at his own joke as the petrification crossed Larry's face.

"No!" Ahkmunrah made a dive for them but he was too late, the two figurines had gone straight down through a dark gap in the floor, the distance they fell would be the life size equivalent of jumping a skyscraper, falling that distance would have shattered the figurines into plastic slivers.

Larry was no longer kind and calm, he was fuming. He grasped the monkey by the throat choking out the mocking laugh. The monkey flailed desperately for freedom but the enraged watchmen held on tight as if it would bring back the miniatures from the pit. He marched back into the foyer, intent on shoving the monkey into a wiz bin outside and leaving him there.

"Larry what on earth are you doing? I thought we talked about Dexter's mischievous streak, oh will you put him down their only keys!" Teddy had arrived on the scene, and gravely under assessed the situation. Larry had started to boil, too long had he dealt with the monkey.

"Only keys!? Do you think I would go of like this about keys!? This piece of vermin cost two lives!" Larry continued to march of, leaving Ted stunned like a rabbit in headlights, the president had believed in the good judgment of everybody and would have never thought the monkey would take his games THAT far. This was going to get ugly.


	2. In Darkest Night

Octavius's POV

I cracked open an eye, my bones ached I could see nothing but black abyss. _I'm in the underworld. _The back of my mind spoke, _you've died and gone to the underworld. _my head was spinning, I tried to stand but I couldn't, my legs were caught in some kind of net, no wait a net? I looked at my feet and after about 3 minutes I could just make out what it was, cobwebs, huge ancient cobwebs, the things must have broken our fall I don't thing I could ever hate spiders again after today.

"Jed, hey Jed, are you there?" I called into the darkness scanning the dark ground with my still adjusting eyes I just needed to catch a glimpse of my friend, I was not leaving without him, but then I spotted him, and he didn't look to good.

He was lying against a support collum unconscious, there was a little trail of blood leading to his head from were he had slid down it _oh no _I tor the cobwebs from my legs and ran towards him, stumbling through the dark catacombs of the museum. _Please be alive. _I put my head on his chest, and his heat beat was to my utter relief still going, it was faint and fluttering but still beating, I shook him,

"Jed! Jedediah!" he didn't react "Please you need to wake up!"

He didn't reach to my shaking, all that happened was that his head flopped around, so I slapped him, hard. His blue eyes shot open and he started moaning, if not for the urgency of the situation I would have to admit that he looks really cute just now, sleepy ocean blue eyes half lidded, hair a tussled mess, mouth open a little and grim smeared across his face not that I was into that kind of thing of course, this was no time to sit back and stare.

"Come on Jed we need to get out of here before sunrise"

I grabbed him under the arms and I tried to haul him to his feet, just as his rear was leaving the ground he screamed, agonisingly loud.

"Jed!" he was bent double and whimpering now, "what is wrong with you! What did I do!?"

He looked up at me, by now my eyes were adjusted enough to pick out the details of his face, his eyes were red and puffy, tears of agony were streaming down his face and there was a bleeding cut on his forehead, his eyes spoke of a pained and weak Jedediah I had never seen nor heard before, it was like the stubborn, determined, adventurous and out going soul I had come to know had been ripped out of him and replaced with this pained and angst filled persona, it was heart breaking to see him like this.

"My leg, I can't move it" his voice came out in a hoarse croak.

I looked down, and I had to struggle not to vomit right then and there, now I knew why he had screamed, Jed had been impaled, there was a long rusty spike of iron protruding from the ground, piecing straight through his outer left thigh, there were bloody strands of spider silk clinging to his legs which were covered in small scratches, I just didn't understand why I had managed to recover with nothing but bruises, and Jed had suffered so many injuries, had he angered some deity sometime, or perhaps he had been jinxed, but dammit, as long as he still breathed I was going to get him out of this! I looked up, it was a long way, barely illuminated by the light from the gap we had fallen through and various other kinks and gaps in the rotten flooring, the brickwork of the support collum would have good footholds, I could make it in about half an hour, less if I discarded my armour, and time was something I didn't have, I ripped off my armour, down to my undershirt and tunic, I rolled up my leather vest into a rope and wrapped it around Jed's wound and pressed his limp pale hands onto it.

"You need to hold this here and press ok, your going to need to save as much blood as possible, I'm going to go and find help, and you are going to have to stay awake! You hear me!" I grabbed the sides of his face and shook him a little to emphasise that last point.

"Alright ill try to, nghh!" he grunted in pain as his battered hands pressed down on the coiled calf leather, his face had contorted into something resembling a gnarled wooden statue.

"I'm going up just hang on ok!" I spared one last glance at his pain racked form, and took a jump start up the brick collum, this was going to be one tough night.

Exactly 24 minutes later I arrived at the surface, I ran as fast as I could to the doorway that, thank Janus, was still open. As I ran into the hallway, my unspoken fears of being lost were destroyed, Dexter's trail of overturned crates, scattered packaging containers and just down right mess had yet to be cleaned up, leaving me a clear path out of the storage rooms.

I made it to the foyer in exactly 9 minutes, and again to my relief, there was Sacagawea by the front desk, she appeared to be very anxious, but to tartorous with that.

"Sacagawea! Sacaga," I had to stop and catch my breath, but I definitely had her attention.

"Octavius please, calm down, we al thought you were dead, were is Jedediah?"

"He's still down there, he got impaled on a nail, you need to run to the diorama room and get help right now!" her eyes widened to saucepans when I said impaled, but she recognised the direness of the situation, she placed me on her shoulder and ran,

When we reached the diorama room, we were greeted with near chaos, the Huns had been trying to keep things under control, but the language barrier, and the size barrier was not helping. When the Huns tried to wrangle the cowboys back into the frontier diorama, they would run every which way and that away from it, when the Huns attempted to chase down the Romans, they assumed offensive positions, and prepared to bombard, just as the catapults were about to be launched I could step in.

"Everybody halt!!"

Silence swept across the battle ground, which was swiftly replaced by a murmur, the roman legions cautiously came out of their positions and lowered their shields, the cowboys steadied their horses to a stop and stared, it appeared they expected me to speak, and speak I would.

"Frontier men, there has been a terrible accident happened to your leader jedediah, you need to get him medical attention now or he may die, Romans, please stop your battle, the Huns are attempting to help"

For a moment everybody just stood still, taking in what I had said, and then everybody took of scurrying away to do as I had asked, to my surprise a quantity of Romans had run to help the cowboys, it appears they had not been fighting against one another as I had first assumed.

Soon me and Sacagawea were guiding a small army of Cowboy medics, running top speed towards the store room, while Sacagawea had little trouble avoiding Dexter's mess, the miniatures had a tougher time, having to weave there wagons between all the fallen debris, and every second wasted, meant that the clock was ticking on Jedediahs life, it was almost to much to bare.

When they winched him out of that pit on a stretcher, my heart lurched in my chest, he looked so dam pale, and there wasn't a piece of his body that wasn't battered and bruised, his leg had been enclosed in a cacoon of bandages, and his leg was in a splint, he was barely conscious and I could only catch a glimpse of him as he was bustled into the waiting cart, horses chafing at the bit. As the horses took of, I could not help a feeling of foreboding, I just didn't like this one bit.

"Octavius, we should hurry and tell Ahkmenra and Larry that you are alive, Larry was pretty, upset" I could tell he was a bit more than upset, but I was in no mood to be talking to a frantic night watchmen at the moment.

"You tell them. I need a little time alone right now, just leave me in the lobby"

"Alright ill let them know, just don't take too long it will be dawn in a few hours"

**--1 hour later—**

I had to go see Jedediah, it was about time, I knew it was I just didn't want to. I slid of the front desk to the floor. I didn't really absorb anything going on around me. It was like my soul had left my body. I didn't know why I felt this way, I hadn't felt like this when I was running off to find help Jedediah could be on his way to a full recovery for all I know, so why do I feel as if something has died, its like the feeling I got when I looked upon a deserted battle field, this dead feeling I wish it would just go away, but it wont I don't think I could ever fully leave a person once its taken hold. This feeling just blocks out everything, I hope that I'm right in the fact that its just worry, and not foresight, I really don't know what id do if Jedediah didn't make it. It's a little strange now I think about it, Jedediah had once been a plague to me, but now I look upon him as one of the dearest friends I've ever had, its odd what impact mere circumstance can make on how you view another person, I have Larry to thank for that.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't realise that I had reached the diorama room until I heard the whistle of the train in Jedediah's frontier diorama. As I looked up I noticed that Ahkmenra was standing there, tablet in hand.

"Ahkmenra? What are you doing here?"

"Ah Octavius! I was wondering where you had gone" he picked me up and put me into the palm of his hand "I was just seeing to Jedediah, that was some run you did earlier, it probably saved his life"

"Umm thankyou? So Jedediah is going to recover isn't he, their not going to chop off his leg of or anything" he chuckled a little at that last comment

"Yes Octavius he will recover fine, he's going to have a bit of a limp but nothing that will stop him from living like he has been, I was just using the tablet to confirm that, I could not heal him but I could speed his natural healing process so that he will be more or less healed in a month or so" I felt a weight lift off my shoulders, that was a relief to say the least. "He is awake now and I think he might want to see you" he put me down on the ledge in front of the frontier diorama.

"alright ill go see him, oh and by the way, Larry didn't kill Dexter did he?"

"no of course not, Teddy argued him out of that one, he'll be in a bit of tight spot over the next month or so to say the least"

I nodded and climbed into the diorama, steeling myself for what might be in store for me inside the makeshift hospital building, I don't know why after all Ahkmenra said he would be fine. But after seeing him like that during the accident, I just couldn't help but worry, I quickend my pace. The quicker I saw him the quicker ill know for sure.

"Mr octavius!" I looked up, there was a woman in nurses getup running towards me.

"we were wondering where you were, come on quickly, Jedediah wants to talk to you"


	3. Awakenings and revelations

Octavius POV

I was lead into one of the few permanent buildings in the west exhibit, after Larry had taken over as night watchman, he had introduced his "modern" health standards abolishing practises like blood letting and some of our more physical rituals, and had given us medicines and "disinfectants" from his world. As much as I hate to say it, they worked quite well. The inside was clean and tidy, but it was cramped, and smelt a little Smokey. I was soon shepherded into his room, warned to be quite while he rested, and planted in a chair to wait.

It was about this time I realised I was still only in my tunic and undershirt, and covered in dirt and grime.

I looked at Jed across the room, the nurses had carefully washed him off after they had treated him the best they could, all his wounds had been carefully cleaned and treated with Larry's medicines and further healed by the pharaoh's magic. He looked pale, not deathly pale but still dangerously so, he didn't snore but his chest rose and fell at a steady pace, which was strangley comforting.

The door opened up and a cheery nurse stepped in with a tray, "alright luv, git your kit off and ill look at them bruises" she set the tray down on the table and began to unpack it.

"I'm sorry but my own doctors are just as competent in healing bruises as you, ill have them do it for me" I was tempted but none the less I could not have my people thinking I was picking sides.

"Nonsense luv, you're here now aint cha? No point getting them ta do it later when your right here now, just tell em ya needed ta clean up before ya saw your friend" how could I argue with that? I was feeling rather grotty at the moment and the comb sitting on her little tray did seem rather inviting.

I took of my undershirt, not my tunic I had dignity to think of, and let her do her thing. We chatted softy as she did so and I learnt that her name was Cheryl Wang, she had been a nurse for most of her life, her husband was a china man making dynamite for the rail workers, both our people were worrying over Jed's health, (because who were we supposed to fight if the cowboys weren't around?) and a lot of gossip that went completely over my head. I did get some more useful information however being that Jed's injury wasn't as bad as it had first appeared, being narrow but piercing the mussel tissue and loosing a lot of blood, probably bruising a rib or two as well, he probably would rest till tomorrow night, dosing off soon after he was winched out of the pit, the Romans had retrieved my armour and were having it repaired, and had left me some fresh clothes from my wardrobe assuming that I would want to wait with my friend.

After Cheryl had finished her ministrations and left me to bath (can you even call it a bath? More like a bucket if you ask me) I changed into the clothes I had been left, and settled back into the plush chair, watching Jed breath until Cheryl returned with a meal for me and a pitcher of water. I had to help her give Jed a drink before eating however, I propped up his head and shoulders with one arm and gently rubbed circles round his throat to make him swallow, just as you would to give a pill to a dog, as she poured the water and a cup of medicine broth down his throat, his lack of response made me worry he may have slipped into a coma but Cheryl assured me that he was simply very exhausted. To my surprise the frontier style food was quite tasty, not crude as I had assumed judging by their "barbarian" attitude. I was hopping to stay awake until Jed woke up but his heavy slumber and the colours of dawn tinging the horizon spoke otherwise, I surrendered myself to the welcome embrace of Morpheus as the sun peaked over New York.

The Next Night

I snorted awake to the uncanny sensation of having a fit of pins and needles throughout my body followed by a rush of vertigo, I would have toppled over if I weren't sitting down.

"Oooh, Octie is that you?' my body jumped at the sound of the raspy voice across the room, and saw Jed's heavy lidded eyes blinking awake.

"Jedediah your awake, you were worry all of us! Are you in any pain?" He nodded, I rushed over to his side instantly and fumbled for the jar of Larry's "pain killing" medicine powder and a cup of water by the bedside I poured a cup, stirred in a teaspoon of the ground powder and helped him drink it.

"You saved my life Octie" his raspy voice grated, I wish I could hear his usual enthusiastic cheering, but rasping was a start.

"I merely did what any other man would have done Jed, any of our men would have saved you, sure we have our qualms, but we will look out for each other" I meant that, every word. "And I'm sorry about the quarry thing Jed, can you forgive me?" he chuckled at that, I did not find it funny.

"Octie, I nearly died and your worrying over a quarry, of course I forgive you, you're my friend"

"You have no idea what that means to me Jed, I was scared you would hold this against me" I hung my head in shame.

A weak pale hand grasped my shoulder, griping it with a shadow of his former strength. I forced my gaze to meet his eyes they were warm and forgiving. I had never seen that look before but I decided right then and there that I really liked it. I can't believe that I never noticed how pretty his eyes are either, deep brown like polished oak wood and ever so expressing. They truly were the windows too his soul.

"I did a lot of thinking in that pit Octie, and I realised something, I know we fought, waged war with each other but that's the past and I'm looking at us now. Our people are talking, trading, befriending each other and I was too stubborn to see what that was doing for us, my people are happier than they have ever been and I think yours are too. Fighting is in the past and I'm leavin it there. Octie I owe you my life, you are the best friend I've ever had and you are a great man, I was too stubborn, stuck up and jealous to see that, but I do now. I am honoured to call you my friend"

My eyeballs were bulging out of my sockets. How by Pluto could I have called this man a barbarian, those were the kindest and most heart warming words anybody had spoken to me since, well, **ever**! I slowly fluttered down from my little peak of shock and awe back to the cowboy in front of me, he was so sincere, and even in his exhaustion you could see his emotions written through his very being.

"I, I, I really don't know what to say to that Jed, nobodies ever… ever said anything like that to me before, I'm touched I really am, and I am the one who should be honoured"

I did the only appropriate thing in that situation, I hugged him, very gently mind you I did not want to aggravate his damaged ribcage. I gently held the cowboy just comforted by the warmness of him, so very full of life, before pulling back, there was something that needed to be said, our eyes locked and I willed my voice to work.

"Your not a barbarian Jedediah, or a savage"

He treated me to a smile, a true genuine smile so full of the hidden joy he revelled in so often, and in the past had shared with me how had I not noticed his inner qualities before.

"Well not that I didn't need that, but if you breathe a word of this ta anybody ill gut you like a Christmas dinner." Now that's the Jed I used to know! Glad to see he hasn't left us.

"You had better go get back to the Romans, set them back to do whatever it is you do, I need some sleep." He yawned as if to emphasise his point and settled back into the soft mattress.

"Ill go tell the nurse, good night Jedediah" I slipped from the room as quietly as I could, stealing one last glance as I shut the door, he was smiling in his sleep.


End file.
